Here’s a newsflash that may shock you. Kelly Macdonald stars as a master puzzle player in the new movie “Puzzle” and – gasp – she didn’t do any puzzle training before shooting the Sundance Film Festival drama. Don’t worry though, she, um, picked up the pieces and made it work.
“It only occurred to me on the first day I was presented with a puzzle, I thought, ‘Oh, I should probably have a wee practice with this.’ But actually, I’ve done enough puzzles in my life that it was all, you know, it was all sort of in there,” Macdonald says. “It’s not like she’s a savant at puzzling. She’s just someone that’s pretty quick at it. So, I just had to sort of sit in front of the puzzle and work out the bits and pieces the I was going to do. And yeah. That was that.”
As Agnes, Macdonald plays a forty-ish stay at home mother from suburban Connecticut whose two teenage sons are almost one foot out the door. Her husband (David Denman) owns an auto repair shop and they live in such a small bubble there is shock that one of their sons, Gabe (Austin Abrams), actually wants to go to college. Seemingly bored with her everyday existence, Agnes discovers a passion for playing puzzles and starts to open a window into other possibilities in her life. It’s hard to imagine in this connected world of the internet and social media someone so young could have been so cloistered, but Macdonald completely understood where Agnes was coming from.
“It’s easy if you live in a big city to sort of forget about the small town kind of life,” Macdonald says. “And I think she’s a woman that, certainly from the screenings of the film, a lot of people relate to. Both men and women sort of have approached me after a screening and told me how it reminded them of certain people or of themselves. And I think, you know, everybody has their moments in life where you can’t possibly stay the same person forever. You have to change. And sometimes that change is forced upon you, and sometimes it’s something you sort of manifest yourself.”
The Marc Turtletaub directed drama has earned positive reviews with most critics spotlighting Macdonald’s nuanced performance.
“This story doesn’t take you on any of the bends you think it’s going to,” Macdonald says. “You know, a scene will be happening and you think, ‘Oh, this is going to happen.’ You know? I’ve seen this sort of thing before. And it doesn’t do that. It takes you somewhere else. And it sort of feels kind of weirdly fresh and different.”
That may also be the best way to describe Macdonald’s 20-plus year career. From her breakout in “Trainspotting” to “Gosford Park” to “No Country To Old Men” and “Boardwalk Empire” she’s often turned up in the most unexpected of places. So much so that it’s almost not a surprise that her next project is “Giri/Haji,” a highly anticipated BBC One and Netflix drama series that follows a Tokyo detective (uncast at this time) who travels to London to search for his younger brother who may have become entangled with the the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza. Macdonald will play a forensics expert who develops a partnership with the detective. And, sadly, her filming will be relegated to the the UK.
“I am friends with Julian Farino, the director. He directed me in a thing called ‘The Child in Time’ and he’s become a really good friend since then,” Macdonald explains. “And he just got in touch and said, ‘I got this project and I think you’d be great.’ And he sent me the script when I was working on another job. And it was pretty intense filming days, and then I happened to have a couple of days where it was courtroom stuff, and I was in the courtroom but not saying anything for a while. And so I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got a chance to read.’ And I could not stop. I was given the first four episodes. It’s just completely riveting. And brilliantly drawn characters. And it’s written by a very fantastic young writer called Joe Barton. And yeah, I can’t, I really, really can’t wait.”
As noted, Macdonald has starred in Oscar and Emmy-winning fare, but the one role she’s played that will live for generations was the voice of Merida in Pixar’s “Brave.” Like many other Disney princesses, Merida is returning in a new form in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2″ this fall.
“Oh my gosh, I was just so delighted,” Macdonald says when she was asked to reprise the role. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to do Merida again. But I do her slightly differently this time. And it was just really fun. And I think it’s a really hilarious scene.”
“Puzzle” is currently playing in limited release.
